• The tree is still up and will be until January 1st. Most likely, I will take it down on that day simply because I need to put it all away in the closet under the stairs. Currently, all the Christmas boxes are taking up residence in the office and I’m starting to sort through things there – getting rid of anything I don’t need. I need the space.
• I finished up in the bedroom yesterday – one more bag of books going to the library. That makes five.
• One of the little things in what Don calls my “stocking.”
A bumper sticker from our local used bookstore. Reminds me of when I had bangs.
• Do you remember me telling you that one of my presents from Don was going to be late? He ordered it stateside but it turns out it shipped from China. He showed me a picture of it on Christmas Day. It arrived yesterday.
It’s difficult to get a good photo of it, but here it is. He swears I mentioned ‘neon’ when we were discussing gifts and I have no recollection of that at all. None; which is slightly scary. Anyway, when he first showed it to me I was surprised, to say the least. But I actually really love it! It’s LED, by the way, not neon. Saint-German is the area of Paris we spent a lot of time in. It’s really lovely. We carried the sign around the house yesterday trying to determine where it would work the best, but we had always thought our office – which is full of memorabilia and whimsey – would be the best place for it, and it is. I like it here because I can see it clearly when I’m working on my projects.
I don’t think it would work anywhere else in the house (doesn’t fit with the rest of the decor) save the upstairs hallway, but we couldn’t find a good place for it there. This little area, tucked under the sloped ceiling, is perfect.
He’s such a sweetie! I’m a happy girl.
• The piano tuner messaged me this morning saying the piano was built in 1941. Mom would have been 14 then, which makes sense as I seem to remember her taking piano lessons when she was a teenager.
• I ordered a piece of sheet music yesterday on Amazon. Did you know that most sheet music today is only offered via a digital download? Ummm…no. I wanted the real deal, with a cover illustration and everything. So I found a used version that was in very good condition and I ordered that.
I remember growing up in an area where I could find sheet music at several local shops. My piano teacher ordered sheet music for us from Grinnell’s, a long ago store in downtown Detroit. Grinnell’s was a fantasy land for me. It had several floors filled with pianos; all sizes, all shapes, all prices. It had a great sheet music department. You could buy things like metronomes there. Once a year, we had a recital on one of the upper floors of Grinnell’s where we were judged by professional pianists. It was all very exciting and scary and wondrous.
There was also a shop in San Diego when I lived there – I don’t think it’s there any longer, but maybe it is – right by Balboa Park. It was a music store and when I could finally afford to have my piano shipped from Michigan to San Diego, I went there to buy all sorts of classical music. They had tons of sheet music. Does anyone know if it’s still there? I’d like to think it is.
Another thing from the past that I miss.
Our conversations here at the cottage have been full of this kind of thing lately. What have we lost to technology? Our list keeps getting longer.
Happy Saturday.